"The axe forgets, but not the tree"

       --African proverb

my tears
flow freely with each new story.
my pain
aches
that same ache
each time
i see that same look
in another victim's eyes ...

the news is old
when it is the same news (one old man
remembered "the time in '27 when they used
black men as sand bags
to hold back the levee ...)
and the same news
is no news at all:

new pictures of black folk suffering
in America is
not news--
is nothing new.

and,
to acknowledge that America's white
and black
people
looking at the same thing
see different
things
is the oldest news of all ...

              Katrina